


Downtown Lights

by orphan_account



Category: RPF: Punditslash
Genre: M/M, Yuletide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-12-25
Updated: 2006-12-25
Packaged: 2017-10-03 16:34:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Anderson returns from New Orleans.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Downtown Lights

It was more cathartic than anything else that had happened since he came back from New Orleans. They didn't meet often and they certainly didn't go out to dinner often, but Jon had invited, and Anderson had jumped at the blessed opportunity for things to feel normal again.

They pulled up outside one of the smaller restaurants in the city, and Jon sat thoughtfully behind the wheel for a minute. Anderson hesitated with his hand on the door handle. "…Isn't this it?"

"You don't want to be stared at tonight," Jon said. "Let's go back to my place, instead. Tracey and the kids are at her mother's for the weekend."

Anderson almost wilted with relief – how had he known? "Thank you," he said, and he buckled his seatbelt again.

"It's the least I could do after the way I roasted you on my show," Jon said.

"Roasted me? Jon, you _murdered_ me. You and Stephen – you tag-teamed me!"

"So I'm apologizing," Jon said, but he didn't sound apologetic at all. Which was like Jon, really – cheerfully irreverent at the best of times, much less times like this.

Anderson sat in silence for a moment, watching Jon's knuckles alternatively tighten and loosen as he fought New York traffic. "I didn't really want to eat somewhere expensive, anyway. Not after seeing how much those people lost," he finally said.

"Anderson Cooper, the philanthropist," Jon said, weaving through traffic again. "You have more money than you know what to do with – and how much have you sent to the Red Cross?"

Anderson felt his temper flare a little, but fought it down. "How much have you sent?"

"I'm not the one feeling guilty over spending his hard-earned cash," Jon said with a small laugh. "Come on. There have always been people who are poor, in America. This just put them on television; put a face to 'poor.' You tugged their heartstrings very well."

"You're quoting yourself," Anderson pointed out, in an attempt to change the subject. He should have known Jon would react that way – although he was just as prone to jump to the other side when someone spoke like a corporate stool pigeon. The man was an enigma – Anderson wondered how his wife tolerated him. It never seemed like he _believed_ in anything, not even his show, not really.

"I must have said something good then, if I thought it was worth repeating." Jon got the last word in, as he almost always did, and the atmosphere in the car settled back down to something normal, if it was ever really considered normal around a TV personality like Jon Stewart.

The rest of the drive passed with small talk and idle chatter. Anderson didn't really pay attention to what he was saying, or how it sounded. He was watching the city flash by, and trying to replace the devastation Katrina had left on the gulf coast with the glitter and flash of NYC. New Orleans would be rebuilt, and while it had never really looked like _this,_ especially not in the parts of the city where the real flavor was.

Dinner with Jon Stewart was always something of a strange experience. Even if he was just as inclined as the next man to talk about mutual acquaintances and re-hash office gossip, conversation was best kept away from what he usually poked fun at on a daily basis. Jon wasn't the same off-camera as he was on-camera – but then, in another weird way, he was. Something of himself carried into his hacking at the media and the administration. How much of himself… that was the question, really.

"So how is it, down there?" Jon finally asked, when they had finished with a hastily cobbled-together dinner of what had looked to be leftovers from Jon's fridge. Anderson laced his hands together in his lap.

"It's a nightmare," he said. "It's so much worse than the cameras-"

"I know. It's worse than what I see through the TV, you don't have to tell me that. I want to know how it _is._"

And that shouldn't have been as surprising as it was, but Jon was often so… cavalier about his job that Anderson forgot he knew what it was like to sit behind a desk and talk at a camera. Not that he pretended, like the rest of them did, to actually know something about the situation, but it was still the same, in a sense. "The French Quarter is mostly untouched. The history of the city – that's all still there. It's the people… the people are what's – and the death."

Jon watched him, leaning back a little in his chair. "Must be nice to come home," he said. "To get away from it."

Anderson looked up angrily. "I'm lucky that I _can_ get away from it."

"And I'm lucky that I was never there at all. That's when it pays not to be a serious news show – they don't send me out in rowboats with a camera to stick in front of hopeless, dying people and ask them how they feel."

"Dammit, Jon!" Anderson said, "It's news – its – America has a right-"

Jon shook his head. "You're getting angry over the wrong part of that statement," he said. "And you're sticking up for the wrong side of that argument. I thought you cared about these people, Anderson."

Anderson stood up, angrier, knocking his chair over. "You sit here in New York while we're wading through mud and water that has _bodies_ floating in it-"

"And rats and death and people crammed past capacity in the Superdome," Jon interrupted. "I know what's down there. That's why I didn't go."

"There has to be _something_ you believe in, Jon!" Anderson said. He gripped the table hard, feeling the wood carving bite into his palms. It might have been better if Jon had tried to get _self-righteous_ about not "stuffing his camera in people's faces," but he was talking like-

Jon had risen from the table, and he had Anderson by the shoulders, and they were _very_ close. "Of course I do," he said, and Anderson tried to pull away from the smell of dinner and wine on his breath. "I believe in my right to sit here in New York while you do the dirty work and throw tomatoes at you. Anderson, my job is to make you look like an idiot, a – a media puppet. A talking head. And I'm _good_ at my job."

"You're not good at making people like you," Anderson said, trying to pull away again. He was uncomfortably aware of how close they were, how Jon was in his space.

"And that's why I don't have your job," Jon said. "I'm good at making people believe that I don't believe in anything. It makes me a more believable comedian."

And right after he hit Anderson with _that_ little bombshell, which would probably make his head spin for days, he closed the gap between them and kissed him.

It was probably good for Jon, if not good for Anderson, that he had piled the two stunning moves right on top of each other, because otherwise Jon would have been flat on his ass by now. As it was, Anderson was so completely poleaxed that he didn't really do anything but let Jon kiss him – which was probably a bad idea and would get to be a worse idea in a minute, but Anderson's brain wasn't quite functioning at the moment.

When he finally gathered enough of himself and his brain stopped stuttering at him, he pushed Jon away a little shakily, and then stood there and blinked as Jon watched him impassively. "I guess that means you don't believe in the ring around your finger, either," he said.

Jon looked down at his left hand – which was resting on Anderson's waist, and Jon still hadn't moved back and _that_ was awkward. "What, Tracey? She's in Oklahoma at the moment."

"Out of sight, out of mind, right?" Anderson hadn't moved back either, and part of him was beating its head against a desk yelling "whywhywhywhy" on a feedback loop.

"If that's the way you want." And then Jon was kissing him again, but with more force this time, and Anderson had to actually work to push him away again.

"Jon, why the _hell_ are you kissing me?" Anderson marveled at the way his voice stayed steady – but it wasn't bad. It wasn't anywhere near this past week, and he had kept his voice steady on camera.

"Seemed like a good way to get you to stop _thinking_ so much. You came home because you didn't need to see or think about New Orleans for a while, and all you've been doing since you've been back is _thinking about New Orleans._ Are you a masochist, or do you just need a really powerful distraction?"

Anderson felt himself flushing. From anger, or from embarrassment, he wasn't quite sure yet. "I don't need to be forgetting about them at all. They need our help-"

"You aren't a hero, Anderson, you're a news anchor," Jon said. His hand was traveling up Anderson's spine, and doing a fairly good job of distracting him on its own. "You were in the heroes' way when you were there, and you'll be even more in their way if you keep yourself there. The most _you_ can do is donate. So do that, and forget about them, and get on with your life. You still have a house and a car and a job."

_Why does he always make me_ feel _younger than him?_ Anderson was the younger, but it never seemed to matter as much as when he was actually with Jon-

Who, incidentally, had his tongue in Anderson's mouth again. Which was very distracting. And also the point, apparently. And despite himself, Anderson could feel a pleasant tingle starting in his spine, and he finally managed to reciprocate.

Jon was the one to pull away this time. "So I won't have to worry about sexual harassment charges?" he asked, his tone only half-joking.

"No," Anderson said. He couldn't quite figure out which way he should be moving, which way was right – so he picked the path of least resistance and ran with it. Jon was nothing if not distracting, and he… on some level he was sure he needed an assurance that he wasn't a rotten person for being able to go home to somewhere that still stood.

"Oh, good. That would be messy and not good at all."

Anderson could quite figure out how they had gotten from the dining room to the bedroom – well, obviously they had _walked,_ but it wasn't something he remembered, not with Jon working to get his suit jacket and his tie and his shirt off him as they went.

Anderson finally snapped out of his daze when they both tumbled down onto the bed, and started fumbling with Jon's tie, tugging it off and tossing it somewhere off to the side of the bed. Then Jon started chewing on his collarbone, down near his shoulder where his suit would hide it on camera, and his fingers shook on the buttons of Jon's shirt.

"I guess the tabloids were right, then?"

Anderson laughed a little helplessly. "No point in denying it now, is there?"

"No," Jon said, popping the button on Anderson's slacks open and pushing them down off his hips. Whatever witty reply Anderson _had_ been forming got lost somewhere between his brain and his tongue when Jon's hand closed around his cock, stroking in sure, firm motions.

"Never – would have thought – about _you_ though," he finally gasped. He skimmed his hands down Jon's sides, to Jon's own pants, hurrying to return the favor.

"Your gaydar must be broken." Jon said. He kicked his pants off the end of the bed, and leaned over Anderson for another kiss, still fierce, still forceful, and the small shred of caution that had been there the first three times was gone.

"No, you're just _married,_ and that always – shit, Jon." Somehow when he hadn't been paying attention, Jon had managed to grab something out of the nightstand drawer, and now he had two slick fingers up Anderson's ass before Anderson could blink.

"Too much?" Jon stilled for a moment, but Anderson shook his head.

"No, God, keep _going._"

"Thought so," Jon said, and _twisted,_ scissoring his fingers, and Anderson couldn't quite keep track of what he said, but it must have been funny because Jon laughed, although you never could quite tell with Jon.

"Christ, Jon, are you _trying_ to kill me?" Anderson asked, as Jon pulled his fingers out as abruptly as they had gone in, and then Jon's hand was on his shoulder, urging him to roll over.

"You all right?" Jon asked, and Anderson nodded, feeling the head of Jon's cock pressed against him. "Okay then." And Jon's hands were on his hips and he thrust in, not quite hitting the right angle but close enough to tear some kind of embarrassing noise from Anderson's chest.

The rhythm was fast, and precise, as soon as Anderson arched his back a little and rested his weight on his elbows, and now he couldn't keep track of what he was saying anymore, except – "Jon, I need, Christ-"

"Yeah," Jon said, and his hand moved from Anderson's hip to his cock, and there was that same rhythm, which was enough, God, more than enough, to make his vision flash white behind his eyes as he came, and felt Jon grip his hip hard as he followed.

They both collapsed in a tangle, and lay still for a brief moment until Jon sat up against the headboard, reaching into the nightstand. "The shower's yours if you want it," he said. "I'm going to smoke."

Anderson moved then, sat up and stretched. "Thanks." A shower sounded _wonderful_; he was sticky with sweat and his own come and Jon's.

"I also believe," Jon said, and Anderson turned around in the bathroom door, "in my right to do _that._ I'll call you a cab when you get out of the shower."

"Thanks," Anderson repeated. It hadn't really shed any light on the man, at all, but it had definitely been a welcome distraction.

And on the way home, he could watch the city lights, without seeing the ghost of floodwaters around the cab.


End file.
